A Preference for Classics

[TheCityTheBridge]

Originally Posted by katharsis

No disagreement here regarding the fact that sexuality was very much 19th century literature, but it just wasn't as blunt, meaning that it was there, but the authors didn't usually portray it in so much detail. Certainly there were exceptions to this, however -- although I can't think of any before Lady Chatterley's Lover, published in 1928. And there are numerous examples of adultery, bastardy, fornication, homosexuality and other "forbidden" topics. The difference, I think, is that the depiction was not usually explicit and detailed. I liken it to some of the movies of the 50's geared for teens in which there is no doubt that the main characters were about to have sex just after the scene ended, but it didn't show them having sex. A Summer Place and Blue Denim -- both which dealt with teen pregnancy -- come to mind.

I would suggest that British literature in the 18th & 19th century is more the anomaly. Earlier works like the Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare's plays & poems were much more frank about sexuality. Contemporaneous works from other parts of the world--like the French Symbolists & Decadents, and the Gothics (Marquis de Sade?) were also much more frank about sexuality.

Originally Posted by katharsis

I also don't disagree that time shifts have also taken place in earlier works, but although I did not have a problem with the earlier writers doing this, I have found it jarring when some modern writers do it. I am not sure why, but it just seems to me, in my opinion, that the modern writers I have read who have done this are not so adept. I don't ever remember being confused by time shifts or shifts in who is doing the narration while reading authors of the past.

Bolano's Savage Detectives is great at handling shifts in time and perspective in contemporary literature. So is DeLilo's Underworld and Murakimi's 1Q84.

Originally Posted by katharsis

Finally, by "faddish", I mean that so many modern writers bring their (usually) extremely liberal views to their writing, and their version of a modern family (or unit) is very different than what I have encountered. Although it is true that the number of two-married-parents-with-at-least-one-child families is declining and this no longer describes the majority of households, it is also true 85% of women do give birth to at least one child, and at least 80% of adults are married at some point in their lives.

Modern & contemporary writers have brought varied perspectives to their literature. I don't understand what you are suggesting here. Examples may help.

Originally Posted by katharsis

However, in many modern novels today, a 1950's-type non-dysfunctional nuclear family in 2018 is more of an aberration instead of being still the most common type of family (meaning at least one adult and at least one child under the age of 18) -- although, to emphasize, it no longer describes the majority of families. To put it another way, there are still more two-parents-with-offspring families than single-mothers-with-children families. Most households do not have at least one member who is part of the LGBTQ community; and most sexual relationships, married or otherwise, are between people of the same race, although, granted, a very large number of Americans today are actually "mutts". (I know of very few third-generation Americans who have 100% English or 100% Portuguese or 100% German ancestry, for example. My husband has a great-niece whose ancestry is Mexican, Filipino, Japanese, German, and English.)

So you don't want to read books with interracial relationships or LGBTQ characters? Why?

Originally Posted by katharsis

Now, of course, Dickens' sympathy for the outcast was probably anathema to traditionalists in the mid-1850's, but I don't think that he or many 19th century writers portrayed these people as "typical" English people. It can also be argued that although they existed back then, black-white and gay relationships were not accepted -- an often not even acknowledged -- by "polite" society.

As an example, Whitman's 19th century poetry was explicitly omnisexual, and clearly embraces same-sex sexuality.

Originally Posted by katharsis

Of course, there ARE many differences today compared to 60 years. Most moms today work outside the home and, in most cases, both spouses do housework and are more or less equally involved in child care, and there are other differences, too. Today's U.S.A. is not so white and segregated, and differences are tolerated more than they were 60 years ago, unwed mothers are no longer castigated, and it is no longer considered shameful to be poor.

Are you uncomfortable reading about people unlike yourself?

Originally Posted by katharsis

But, again, the point I am making is that -- again, this is my opinion -- most modern authors seem to accept that non-typical families and relationships are typical, but that is simply not true. Most relationships are still heterosexual and between people of the same kind of cultural, ethnic and racial background. (Oh, and to be clear, I do not object at all to "non-traditional" people, couples, or families because I think that the sooner the U.S. and the rest of the world is much more heterogeneous, the sooner we can have peace between different cultures and races.)

Writers choose subjects. Their work does not assume that their subjects are typical. The carpenter in the Miller's Tale in the Canterbury Tales is hardly presented as the "typical" carpenter.

Originally Posted by katharsis

P.S. Links to support some figures I stated are below:

Parenting in America | Pew Research Center
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/pres..._United_States
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/pres.../cb16-192.html

Why would an author aspire to reflect the census' statistics?

[katharsis]

To answer a couple of the points you made, no, I do not object to reading about people different from myself, and, no, members of the LGBTQ community and mixed-race relationships do not make me uncomfortable. However, I simply don't find novels about such people interesting or entertaining. just as I am not interested in reading about people living in Kyrgyzstan or who are NYC high fashion models or who are carpet layers. I read novels for entertainment, and I usually prefer novels with characters with whom I can identify in some way. If I want to be educated about a subject, I will read non-fiction. (As I said in my first post on this thread, I now read more non-fiction than fiction.)

Again, I simply prefer to read about characters that I can relate to in some way and about subjects that I am interested in, and I think I have the right to do that. Do you dispute that?

P.S. I wish I could give you examples of books I thought reflected what I said about some modern novels being "faddish", but if I start a novel and find that it doesn't interest me, I will not finish it, and I certainly won't remember it. (Sorry.) And to say it again, I also don't dispute what you wrote about some early writers.

And, of course, authors are free to write about anything they wish! I certainly do not dispute their right to do so! It would be a very boring world if all novels featured a "Fathers Knows Best" type of family as their main characters! My favorite novel of all time is still To Kill A Mockingbird which, as you know, features a single father with two kids living in 1930's Alabama. Although I couldn't really relate to any of the characters in the book or to the setting, I nevertheless found the subject matter thought-provoking and the writing very entertaining. (And you may recall that there was a minor white character in it who was living with, and had several children with, a black woman.)

[2x3x29x41]

Originally Posted by katharsis

No disagreement here regarding the fact that sexuality was very much 19th century literature, but it just wasn't as blunt, meaning that it was there, but the authors didn't usually portray it in so much detail. Certainly there were exceptions to this, however -- although I can't think of any before Lady Chatterley's Lover, published in 1928. And there are numerous examples of adultery, bastardy, fornication, homosexuality and other "forbidden" topics. The difference, I think, is that the depiction was not usually explicit and detailed. I liken it to some of the movies of the 50's geared for teens in which there is no doubt that the main characters were about to have sex just after the scene ended, but it didn't show them having sex. A Summer Place and Blue Denim -- both which dealt with teen pregnancy -- come to mind.

Yes. Authors wanted to get their works published. Between publishing houses adamantly refusing to publish them and/or governments putting them on criminal trial for obscenity, authors either had to avoid such subjects entirely or cloak them in so much subtle innuendo as to either elude or placate the censors. Films of the 1950s were similarly subject to the Hays Code.

Originally Posted by katharsis

However, in many modern novels today, a 1950's-type non-dysfunctional nuclear family in 2018 is more of an aberration instead of being still the most common type of family (meaning at least one adult and at least one child under the age of 18) -- although, to emphasize, it no longer describes the majority of families. To put it another way, there are still more two-parents-with-offspring families than single-mothers-with-children families. Most households do not have at least one member who is part of the LGBTQ community; and most sexual relationships, married or otherwise, are between people of the same race, although, granted, a very large number of Americans today are actually "mutts". (I know of very few third-generation Americans who have 100% English or 100% Portuguese or 100% German ancestry, for example. My husband has a great-niece whose ancestry is Mexican, Filipino, Japanese, German, and English.)

Fiction is based on conflict. A family with a degree of dysfunctional more readily lends itself to an interesting storyline - the aspect of dysfunction being part of the conflict, or an impediment to the conflict's resolution - than a shiny happy family where nothing goes wrong. A pending divorce is a problem. Single parenthood can be a struggle. These facts lend themselves to fiction. Dickens certainly understood this in his many depictions of orphans (I would say that having no parents at all certainly qualifies as a serious dysfunction of the family unit).

Originally Posted by katharsis

But, again, the point I am making is that -- again, this is my opinion -- most modern authors seem to accept that non-typical families and relationships are typical, but that is simply not true. Most relationships are still heterosexual and between people of the same kind of cultural, ethnic and racial background. (Oh, and to be clear, I do not object at all to "non-traditional" people, couples, or families because I think that the sooner the U.S. and the rest of the world is much more heterogeneous, the sooner we can have peace between different cultures and races.)

I don't see why fiction should necessarily represent reality or mirror actual demographics. There are a lot more broken pipes than there are murders, yet how many novels are there featuring plumbers compared to homicide investigators? There are a lot more accountants than spies, but the spy genre is popular and the accountant genre is non-existent. Most ships aren't sunk by vengeful whales (Moby Dick) and most children in the 19th century weren't vagabonds who helped runaway slaves escape (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn). I'm confident that Melville and Twain understood this. They chose their characters and settings to suit the themes and ideas they wanted to discuss, not to get demographically accurate samplings. In fact, if you look at 'classic literature', you'll find non-whites and LGBT people woefully underrepresented, especially as protagonists. Is that a reason to eschew the classics? I think not.

[JrzDefector]

I love the works of Jane Austen. I also love the works of Joe Coomer and Richard Russo. I think there is some wonderful writing that has come out in the past 20 years. I've read plenty of classics, but the writing can be clunky and the continuity poor. I often wonder what Jane Austen could have produced if she'd just had a computer with word processing software rather than having to write and review everything by hand.

I love the diversity of today's fiction and the realism that is reflected in it.

Honestly, if I had to choose between only reading modern fiction and fiction from 50 years ago or longer, I'd choose the newer stuff. More variety, more real.

[Cida]

I don't think of it in in terms of "getting" something out of books, but I like older books, before 1950, or even 1920, more because I think the writing is more interesting, the plots more complex or more subtle, the characters more vivid. I'm particularly fond of 19th century British novels.

[Mikala43]

Love Jane Austen!! I'll throw in classics that I haven't read every once in awhile, Three Musketeers, Dickens, etc.